OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 9.00pm. A NEW special investigating unit is to be set up to concentrate on gangs and organised crime, Justice Minister Dullah Omar announced on Thursday. A unit focusing on gang-related activity and violence in the Western Cape will begin operations immediately, he told a press conference in Cape Town. […]

Max Hamata and Thokozani Mtshali The flesh trade has found a niche on campuses across South Africa, but not because students are impoverished and battling to pay fees. Peer pressure to wear the latest brand of clothing and carry the smallest cellphone has prompted many young women into selling their bodies. A 23-year-old third-year business […]

Alan Henry : Formula One Last weekend Italy was on strike. For two hours on Sunday afternoon the entire nation was infected with an epidemic of scarlet fever, rendering them unable to move away from their television and radio sets. The focus of the nation’s devotion was Monza, a 5,76km loop of tarmac in the […]

Peter Frost In a union which typifies the new reality of economic pressure on the arts as well as calls for broadening of artistic horizons, members of Gauteng’s State Theatre Ballet and the Cape Town City Ballet (CTCB) will join forces on Saturday night at the Nico Opera House for the first time. Dancers from […]

James Rupert in Kinshasa Three generations of Andre Miku’s family live in the concrete-block compound they have built over decades around a dirt yard and a mango tree. Of 11 people who live here, none has a formal job. Miku (70), a retired mechanic, receives a government pension of $7 a month. The family rents […]

Chiara Carter Bitterness lingering after the choice of Gerald Morkel over populist Peter Marais to replace Hernus Kriel as leader of the National Party and premier in the Western Cape is likely to resurface at the party’s regional conference next week. Marais is understood to have been pressured by grassroots supporters to contest the elections, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 4.30pm. THE SOUTH African tourist industry could create up to 600000 new jobs by 2010 if it can successfully tap its travel and tourism potential, the South African Chamber of Commerce director-general Raymond Parsons said. Addressing the chamber’s Northern Province congress in Tzaneen, Parsons said that tourism and travel are […]

David Shapshak Kabuki theatre, one of Japan’s most ancient and revered art forms, comes to South Africa for the first time this weekend. Renowned Kabuki actor Satojiro Wakayagi will perform the famed kagamijishi dance (the lion of new year’s banquet) at Sandton’s Theatre on the Square on Sunday night. Kabuki is quintessentially Japanese. A highly-stylised […]

David Hirst in Beirut President Liamine Zeroual’s decision to step down before the end of his five-year term looks likely to weaken Algeria’s military-based regime and further erode domestic and international confidence in its ability to end the gruesome civil war. The shock decision, announced last weekend, has plunged the country into new confusion and […]

It’s written in the stars, but only the experts can read it, and not everybody believes it. Jane Rosenthal visited astrologer Rod Suskin The day I made an appointment with Rod Suskin, I did not know that my father would die (I knew he was sick) and nor did I know that a devastating forest […]